Wee White Blossom: What Post-Referendum Scotland Needs to Flourish

By Lesley Riddoch

So stands Scotland where it did? Not on your nelly.
The professional classes in Scotland may be busy with Commissions, vows, deals, submissions and General Election planning but the wider Yes Movement is busy with huge spontaneous meetings involving hundreds, even thousands of people - gatherings like birds flocking before winter or starlings swooping to throw shapes into darkening skies. Because they can.
Wee White Blossom is a post-indyref, poppadom-sized version of Blossom for folk who've already sampled the full bhuna. It updates
Blossom with a new chapter on Scotland's Year of Living Dangerously. Lesley Riddoch shares her thoughts on the Smith Commission, the departure of Gordon Brown, the return of Alex Salmond and the latest developments in land reform and local control. She considers the future of the SNP, the Radical Independence Campaign, Common Weal, Women for Independence and Scottish Labour in the aftermath of the referendum. This is a plain-speaking, incisive call to restore equality and control to local communities and let Scotland flourish.

Wee White Blossom is the ideal companion volume to
Blossom, whether you want an update on the first edition or an appetiser before delving into the pages of the original.

The most influential, passionate and constructive book to appear during the referendum campaign. Blossom
seized readers because it argued for independence as means to an end - restoring control over their own lives to Scottish communities so disempowered by top-down authority that they had no real experience of democracy.
NEAL ASCHERSON

A brilliant, moving, well written, informative, important and valuable piece of work.
ELAINE C SMITH

Not so much an intervention in the independence debate as a heartfelt manifesto for a better democracy.
ESTHER BREITENBACH,
Scotsman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luath Press
• Release date: Dec 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910324486

Lesley Riddoch

Lesley set up the policy group Nordic Horizons in 2010 with Dan Wynn and is one of Scotland’s best known commentators and broadcasters. She was assistant editor of The Scotsman in the 1990s (and editor of The Scotswoman in 1995 when female staff wrote, edited and produced the paper) and contributing editor of the Sunday Herald. She is best known for broadcasting with programmes on bbc2, Channel 4, Radio 4 and bbc Radio Scotland, for which she has won two Sony speech broadcaster awards. Lesley runs her own independent radio and podcast company, Feisty Ltd which produces a popular weekly podcast and was a member of the three-year eu-funded Equimar marine energy project. Lesley is a weekly columnist for The Scotsman and The National and a regular contributor to The Guardian, Scotland Tonight, Question Time and Any Questions. She is also completing a phd supervised by Oslo and Strathclyde Universities comparing the Scots and Norwegian hutting traditions. Lesley founded the charity Africawoman and the feminist magazine Harpies and Quines and was a member of the Isle of Eigg Trust, which led to the successful community buyout in 1997. She wrote Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides in 2007, Blossom – what Scotland needs to Flourish with Luath in 2013 and Wee White Blossom – what post referendum Scotland needs to Flourish in December 2014.

Book preview

LESLEY RIDDOCH is an award-winning broadcaster, writer and jour-nalist. She writes weekly columns for The Scotsman, The National and Sunday Post and is a regular contributor to The Guardian, bbc Question Time, Scotland Tonight and Any Questions. She is founder and Director of Nordic Horizons, a policy group that brings Nordic experts to the Scottish Parliament and produces a popular weekly podcast. Lesley presented You and Yours on BBC Radio 4, The Midnight Hour on BBC2 and The People’s Parliament and Powerhouse on Channel 4. She founded the Scottish feminist magazine Harpies and Quines, won two Sony awards for her daily Radio Scotland show and edited The Scotswoman – a 1995 edition of The Scotsman written and edited by its female staff. She lives in Fife and is married to an Englishman who grew up in Canada.

Luath Press is an independently owned and managed book publishing company based in Scotland and is not aligned to any political party or grouping. Viewpoints is an occasional series exploring issues of current and future relevance.

Reading Lesley Riddoch’s Blossom is like inhaling fjord air after being trapped in a sweaty backroom. Just brilliant.

PAT KANE, singer and columnist

Inspiring, galvanising analysis of the untapped potential of Scottish people power.

KARINE POLWART, singer/songwriter

Blossom confirms Lesley Riddoch’s reputation as one of our top campaigning journalists.

PAUL HUTCHEON, The Herald

Cracking. A hopeful antidote to so much empty nastiness in politics. Read!

ALYN SMITH MEP

It’s brilliant – every politician in the land should be made to read the chapter on inequality. I love the human stories in the book, but it’s rich with evidence too. The most engaging social policy book I’ve read in ages (ever?).

JENNY KEMP, Zero Tolerance Campaign

I’m reading Blossom right now and every paragraph crystallises the nebulous sensations of deep divide

inequality and snobbery I have experienced my whole life.

DES DILLON, writer

Blossom is something we should all be reading. This is the book William Power and Edwin Muir should have written … a fine work.

ELSPETH KING, Director, Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum

To all progressives – just to everyone… read Lesley Riddoch’s Blossom. She just gets it.

DAVID GREIG, playwright

Blossom reveals a Scotland full of promise, whose richest resource – her people – remains untapped. Riddoch’s belief in Scotland’s countrymen and women is the lifeblood of Blossom.

NEWSNET SCOTLAND

A hard-hitting tour-de-force and a characteristically feisty contribution to (and beyond) the present constitutional debate.

PADDY BORT, Product Magazine

Wee White

Blossom

What Post-Referendum Scotland Needs To Flourish

LESLEY RIDDOCH

Luath Press Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published 2015

ISBN: 978-1-908373-99-1

ISBN (EBK): 978-1-910324-48-6

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

© Lesley Riddoch

To Rosie and Jenny,

joyful young companions

on the journey

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE 2014: Scotland’s Year of Living Dangerously

CHAPTER TWO Radical Scotland meets the Smith Commission

CHAPTER THREE Blossom

CHAPTER FOUR Land, Land Everywhere… and Soon a Drop for Sale

CHAPTER FIVE Supersized Councils – Disempowered Communities

CHAPTER SIX Women – The Real Indyref Winners

CHAPTER SEVEN What’s Next – The 2015 General Election

CONCLUSION What Scotland Needs to Blossom

Acknowledgements

Muriel Alcorn

Bella Caledonia

Øivind Bratberg

Paddy Bort

Robin Callander

Hannah Derbyshire

Development Trusts Association Scotland

Professor Tom Devine

Foster Evans

Maggie Fyffe

Jim Harvey

Mary Hepburn

Luath Press, Kirsten Graham and Louise Hutcheson

Cathy McCormack

Professor David McCrone

Professor Catriona MacDonald

Rosemarie MacEachen

Cailean MacLean

Robin McAlpine

Annie Macsween

Professor Charles McKean

Mark Perryman

Perspectives magazine, especially Davie Laing

Tommy Riley

Mona Røhne

The Scotsman

The Sunday Herald

Newsnet Scotland

The National

Tore Tanum

Ann Soutar

Phil Welsh

Andy Wightman

Raymond Young

All the above have saved me from errors in fields where they are expert and the faults or misjudgements that survive their amendments are mine alone.

Introduction

Wee White Blossom is a post-referendum update for folk who have already read the main book. Parts of the original are included to give context and make this diminutive version readable. Doubtless by the time you read this, though, some thoughts will be out-dated, slightly off-beam or even plain wrong. Events in Scotland after the referendum are moving that fast. Unfortunately some of the main Blossom chapters, like the one about Tommy Riley and the Drumchapel Men’s Health project, cannot now change. Tommy died prematurely of COPD just before Blossom was first published in 2013. Consultant obstetrician Mary Hepburn has now (partly) retired to her beloved Shetland. The lives of the drug-using mothers she treated in Possil and North Glasgow are still grim. The bold housing pioneers of West Whitlawburn have gone from strength to strength despite the sad death of co-founder Phil Welsh. They are currently installing a district heating system to save energy and cut bills – meanwhile much of council-run East Whitlawburn looks set to be demolished.

But of course there has been even bigger change in Scotland since 2013. 45 per cent of Scots voted Yes in the independence referendum – more than anyone could dream of when this book was first published but not enough to win the day. Since that vote, with its record-breaking 85 per cent turnout, pro-independence movements like Women for Independence, Radical Independence, National Collective and Common Weal have flourished and party membership has surged amongst Yes supporting parties like the Greens, SSP and above all the SNP – likely to have 100,000 members by Burns Night 2015. Nicola Sturgeon was elected unopposed as the new SNP leader and has already made history three times – she is the first female SNP leader, the first female First Minister and leads the first gender equal cabinet. Not bad going for one week. The Scottish Government’s new legislative programme contains a long overdue Land Reform Bill, plans for more affordable childcare and quotas for women on public boards. Meanwhile Alex Salmond has announced he will contest the 2015 Westminster elections as a candidate for the Gordon constituency, breathing yet more life into the hyper-oxygenated SNP.

Of course there is some anxiety about keeping new members engaged, a dearth of independent candidates willing to stand ‘under the SNP banner’ and disappointment amongst time-served members about the number of recently-joined folk competiting for 2015 nominations. But in the former Yes camp, the air is full of possibility.

By contrast, the main victors of the No campaign, the Labour Party, have been tearing themselves apart – or retiring. Johann Lamont resigned unexpectedly in the wake of the No vote. She described Westminster Labour MPs as dinosaurs and accused the London leadership of treating the Scottish party like a branch office. Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown led the No camp to victory – then each (separately) announced his intention to leave politics in 2015, giving the appearance that No leaders had cut and run before ‘substantial new powers’ were wrestled from Westminster – whilst the bloodied but unbowed Salmond was preparing to soldier on.

Of course hardcore Labour supporters will not see the Brown/ Darling retirement announcements that way at all. But a perception of constancy could help the SNP win the all-important battle over the narrative of the 2015 campaign. General Elections have hitherto been perceived by Scots as a two-horse race in which England votes (largely) Tory so Scotland must vote (largely) Labour. But the next election looks set to produce another hung parliament in which neither party alone has a working majority. That opens up the prospect of a different dynamic – a four-horse race as UKIP take seats south of the border while the SNP is elected in large numbers north of it. In this scenario, an SNP vote doesn’t contribute to a Tory victory (Nicola Sturgeon has said she will ‘never, ever support a Conservative government’) but could make a Labour government with SNP backing more likely. Of course a sizeable SNP bloc will try to extract full Home Rule for Scotland and the cancellation of Trident’s renewal – and that might be a political price too high for Ed Miliband without losing even more support in Middle England. Still, such a scenario might serve to reinforce the SNP’s role as guarantor of Scottish interests at Westminster. As Salmond said on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, ‘The only circumstances in which people will trust Labour to deliver for Scotland is when the SNP are at their heels.’

With five months to go, that rhetoric may resonate strongly with disgruntled Scottish voters.

Far more certain though, is that Salmond already resonates with the UK media. Having spent the election campaign virtually ignoring his very able deputy Nicola Sturgeon, the British press has built Salmond into a powerful UK phenomenon which culminated in a Liverpool Question

Reviews for Wee White Blossom

[jkincaid_16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A serious look at the roots of problems and inequality in Scotland with suggested solutions that already exist in the country, but have never been nurtured or supported properly. Uses comparisons to Europe, Scandinavia and England. Being a small partner in UK has contributed to the issues.